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Allow me to universalize this: Our current political parties apparently function to allow mediocrity to rise to the top. OK, so I sort of stole that from Ayn Rand, but you know how I feel about foreigners.

Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound - Unknown

I completely agree w/the video. And I have been advocating this since the GWBush election. Thats when I threw in the towel for the Republican party and registered as an Independent. A conservative independent. I am involved at every level I can be. Too bad this is not news .. to only a small number of us.. overall that is.

Americans have been sooo successfully been dumbed down for over a hundred years now. The very building blocks that make America what it is, are almost completely erased and replaced.

The left has made it their mission to control all avenues and levers of power to this very end. And it includes the leadership in the GOP to the multiple layers of unelected bureaucrats that never go away from one administration to the next, to the Secretarys of State in each state that over see the votes, to the Library of Congress which decides the curriculum in our Public Indoctrination Centers aka Public Education.

And then you have this massive left leaning media complex, which does untold damage to this 'pop culture' which is promoted for the express purpose of dumbing us down to the lowest possible denominator. With amazing success as we have seen.

It does appear that Statist Utopian Bliss and Ignorance is going to rule the day. In other words history repeats itself once again. I fear we are already at the 'Bread and Circuses' stage, if you know what I mean. Nonetheless I for one will never give up nor willingly agree to be shackled thusly. And when all is lost and I am obviously crushed to dust into the pavement I will still 'toast' my oppressors with a middle finger, so long as I have a middle finger. Count on it.

Political power has a similar effect on the brain to cocaine - and it's not surprising that, as the Leveson Inquiry shows, our political leaders are hooked on it, says Dr Ian Robertson.

Democracy, the separation of judicial powers and the free press all evolved for essentially one purpose Ė to reduce the chance of leaders becoming power addicts. Power changes the brain triggering increased testosterone in both men and women. Testosterone and one of its by-products called 3-androstanediol, are addictive, largely because they increase dopamine in a part of the brainís reward system called the nucleus accumbens. Cocaine has its effects through this system also, and by hijacking our brainís reward system, it can give short-term extreme pleasure but leads to long-term addiction, with all that that entails.

Unfettered power has almost identical effects >>>

Submissiveness and dominance have their effects on the same reward circuits of the brain as power and cocaine. Baboons low down in the dominance hierarchy have lower levels of dopamine in key brain areas, but if they get Ďpromotedí to a higher position, then dopamine rises accordingly. This makes them more aggressive and sexually active, and in humans similar changes happen when people are given power. >>>

But too much power - and hence too much dopamine - can disrupt normal cognition and emotion, leading to gross errors of judgment and imperviousness to risk, not to mention huge egocentricity and lack of empathy for others.

Allow me to universalize this: Our current political parties apparently function to allow mediocrity to rise to the top. OK, so I sort of stole that from Ayn Rand, but you know how I feel about foreigners.

And she got it from the Peter Principle, which basically states that people continue to be promoted until they screw up badly enough to stop their advancement, at which point, they stagnate, so that most leadership positions are filled by people who have been promoted beyond their competence. There are holes in this theory, but it is more applicable to the public sector than the private sector, where economic laws continue to impose reality.

The problem with the premise of the OP is this: There are going to be two major parties in American politics. It's the way that the system was designed, and for a good reason. The founders didn't want a parliamentary system, they wanted a robust public debate between energized and informed factions. The problem is that one of those factions has abandoned any commitment to the founding principles and seeks only power. The progressive mindset has always presumed that things would be better if the average person wasn't bothered with the tasks of government, for which we have not been adequately prepared. It should be left to the wise men and women of the various branches of government, and we shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about it. The whole idea of representative democracy offends their oligarchic impulses. This is the mindset of the DNC. The RNC sees itself as a loyal opposition when out of power (while the DNC sees itself as the rightful wielders of power, whether in or out of it), and a governing party when in power. The DNC factions are united by a progressive mindset. The RNC factions are not united, but divided over the proper role of a political party that puts the nation first, often to its own detriment.

The story about John McCain and the allegations of fraud is telling. McCain was afraid that even if he did prove that fraud was rampant in 2008, that the allegations would damage the office of the president. He would rather lose gracefully for the good of the nation, than win ugly. Richard Nixon was presented with the same choice in 1960, when it became obvious that much of Kennedy's win in Illinois was the result of fraud, but he refused to contest the results. Contrast that with Al Gore, who chose to tear the country apart and permanently tarnish the legitimacy of the presidency in the death throes of his campaign.

This, then, is the difference between the parties, and the source of our frustration. McCain, Nixon, Dole and the rest of our moderates were flawed as statesmen and politicians, but they were basically decent, patriotic men who were willing to accept losing because they respected the system too much to challenge it. This was why Nixon resigned and Clinton didn't.

There is no perfect party. I think that we can all agree that most moderate Republicans are more conservative than the average Democrat. The problem isn't that the moderates deliberately thwart the conservatives out of revulsion, they do it because they genuinely believe that their way, to build consensus and compromise, is the basis of a republic, and the fear the passions that they don't share. They aren't ideologues, they are pragmatists, good at getting things done, but not great at what George H.W. Bush called "The vision thing" (if ever anything summed up the moderate Republicans, it was that statement). Moderates seek the middle way because, while they may be personally conservative on some issues, they are tempermentally inclined to avoid conflict. They aren't radicals and don't "get" the passions that animated the founders. The way to deal with them is to prove your arguments, and prepare them for the fight that will come when the other side's radicals take up their tools, not to abandon the structure that they helped to build and make the kinds of demands that we associate with the Democrats.

Anyone not voting will get what they deserve. Big problem: All of us will be stuck with it.

Like Rock says - the supremes are far too important for ANYONE to ignore the GE.

It's not how old you are, it's how you got here.It's been a long road and not all of it was paved.A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. Gandhi

Originally Posted by Carol

When I judge someone's integrity one key thing I look at is - How does s/he treat people s/he doesn't agree with or does not like?
I can respect someone who I do not agree with, but I have NO respect for someone who puts others down in a public forum. That is the hallmark of someone who has no integrity, and cannot be trusted.

I don't think some of you realize what type of massive Exodus is getting ready to happen when Romney is the nominee. Tea Party types and Conservatives are heading for the exit doors.

I don't get this at all. Fuck them shitbirds then.

We just had 13 or so people run in the primary. Every one of them was the front runner at one time or another.

Anyone could have run anyone they wanted. It's not like we didn't know a Presidential primary was coming. If you're guy didn't run or you're guy didn't win, tough shit. It's called an election not an appointment. Don't cry and take your ball home since you don't like the guy that won the R nomination. I don't have time for douchebags that feel this way.

Can we take a trip to reality please? Reality is this: right now, there is no way in blue hell a viable 3rd party candidate is going to come out of the woodwork and even if there were, the swing voters will never vote for a 3rd party. And right now we have 2 choices: Romney or Obama. We already know what path we're on with Obama. Unless what we've been discussing since 2008 has all been a dream. And reality is, if you choose to sit this out and not hold your nose and vote for Romney, we're left with 4 more years of Obama. If this is what you want, then fine. This is what you'll get.

Can we take a trip to reality please? Reality is this: right now, there is no way in blue hell a viable 3rd party candidate is going to come out of the woodwork and even if there were, the swing voters will never vote for a 3rd party. And right now we have 2 choices: Romney or Obama. We already know what path we're on with Obama. Unless what we've been discussing since 2008 has all been a dream. And reality is, if you choose to sit this out and not hold your nose and vote for Romney, we're left with 4 more years of Obama. If this is what you want, then fine. This is what you'll get.

It has all been a dream. Look I'm not happy with the Obama administration either, and I feel they are taking the country in dangerous new directions. However, for the most part it's been along the same course that we were on for the 8 years prior to Obama's election, with Bush.

Look at all of the insane rhetoric in 2008 about Obama's election. White slavery, soviet death panels, marching Obama shock troops, confiscation of all private property, erecting mosques in front of every Christian Church in America, forcing red blooded Americans to pray to the Moon God, Government-controlled single-payer health care (which would have been great, if it actually happened, by the way), surrendering to Bin Laden, raising everyone's taxes, global new world order takeover with spinning eyes in pyramids, etc. etc. etc.

Not a single one of these things actually happened. Obama kept much of Bush's men in place (Gates, Petraeus, Geithner, Bernanke) and continued Bush's policies (extended the Bush Tax Cuts, extended the patriot act, expanded the War on Terror, continued bailouts). Even Obama's most controversial policy, the health care bill, was modeled after conservative policies.

The idea for an individual health care mandate, requiring citizens to purchase private health insurance was floated by Republicans in the past, and openly supported by the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think tank). http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/201...idual-mandate/

All of this fantasy about how Obama is some extreme radical leftist is nothing more than a marketing ploy, a campaign scheme concocted by people like Frank Luntz who are open propagandists making a living on figuring out how to manipulate people's opinions. I don't think Obama is good for the country, but he's not what you've been convinced he is. The narrative that Obama is a left-wing fanatic is nothing more than a GOP campaign strategy to make conservatives feel like they have to vote for whoever the GOP candidate is, even if they don't support him/her.

The sad thing is that it works.

Originally Posted by Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.